


Before Once Upon a Time

by Meltha



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Book: The Magician's Nephew, Gen, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meltha/pseuds/Meltha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strike the bell and bide the danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before Once Upon a Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Googlebrat](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Googlebrat).



> Written as a stocking stuffer for Googlebrat for Yuletide 2007.
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters were created by C. S. Lewis. No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is made from this work of fiction.

Sisters had never been closer than Araminta and Jadis, or so the people of Charn once said. As little girls, they had played together on the banks of the country rivers, catching tadpoles and listening to birdsong, imitating it uncannily back to one another. They looked little enough alike. Araminta was dark haired and brown-eyed, her complexion ruddy and her smile bewitchingly charming. Jadis, on the other hand, was fair as a lily, blonde and blue-eyed, and everyone always knew that she would break hearts someday.

But the differences were not only in appearance. Araminta, though as bold and adventurous as her younger sister, was kind. Jadis, for her part, had a slight tendency to take a prank too far. The thin line between a good laugh and something darker blurred for her, and many were happy the young princess had her older sister to rein in some of her less pleasant aspects.

But years changed things. Araminta was to become queen after their father’s death, and Jadis had a seed of resentment in her heart, small at first, but hard as adamant. They had different mothers, of course. Araminta had been the offspring of their father and his first wife, while Jadis’s birth had been a cause for some concern. Lilith had never been a favorite among her father’s people, and she had disappeared soon after producing the little girl. Most said good riddance. There had been something unnerving about her beauty. This may have prejudiced the people without cause towards the younger girl, or perhaps cause was truly there. Either way, when their father began to set his affairs in order, as was the custom of Charn when a king reached a certain age, it became public knowledge that Araminta would have the title of queen, while Jadis should be merely a princess.

The seed in Jadis’s heart burned her, galled her flesh with the whisper of envy, and despite what all the stories might say, envy is the most destructive force in the universe, and it would wipe Charn clean as a bleached bone before the end.

When the old king died, Araminta wished to be kind to her sister, and she made a grave error. She decided their father’s will should be overlooked, and the two of them would reign over Charn together as twin queens, each with equal power and strength. To Jadis, the taste of power was enough to drive her mad, and the urge to be the one with mastery was too great for her already small control.

Before the citizens of Charn knew what was happening, the sisters were at war. Battles of epic proportions were fought, and the world trembled at the casualties. Perhaps something could have been done to stop things before they became too far gone, but the two girls who laughed and caught tadpoles and sang together like birds were wrapped in a death hold. Araminta had learned too late that Jadis was a betrayer, and yet her heart was as free of the seed of hatred as Jadis’s was enslaved to it, and this was Araminta’s undoing.

In the end, Araminta had won by every rule of warfare that had been written, and she was glad of it. Now that it was over, the two of them could begin to make amends for all that had gone before. They were, after all, still sisters. Araminta extended her hand to Jadis, hoping against hope that things could be as they once were.

“Come, Jadis,” she said. “There is no use in further struggle. My sister, it is time to lay down the burden of war and embrace peace. I hold you no ill will.”

When the Deplorable Word was spoken, Araminta had time only for her face to twist in anguish at the last betrayal before she lay, cold and dead, on the ground at her sister’s feet.

But Jadis’s triumph was brief. Charn was quiet beyond the endurance of any living thing, a bleak landscape of loneliness. She had traded everything and everyone for power, and power was empty, a lie like the countless ones she had told. But the seed in Jadis’s heart twitched, burned, galled her until it convinced her to believe the lie that this was not her fault, that her decision had been just and wise, and that she was beyond the rules of mere mortals. Still, the utter vacancy of Charn was too much, even for one with blood as cold as hers.

She contrived the trick of the bell to wake her, and then joined her ancestors in sleep. Someone would ring it; of that she was certain. It was too tempting to resist. So she waited, still as stone, her heart a spent cinder in her breast, knowing birdsong would never echo again within Charn, and for that, she was glad.


End file.
